The strongest people in the history of Russia

“Russian means strong!” The cult of physical strength in Russia has always been. It is no coincidence that the protagonists of folk tales were hefty warriors. Strongmen in our history with a surplus.

Kings and governors

1) Evpaty Kolovrat

Evpatiy Kolovrat can be called the strongest Russian commander. In The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan, Batu, it is described how Yevpaty and his retinue entered into an unequal battle with the hordes of Mongol-Tatars "And Yevpaty beat them so mercilessly that he swords were dulled, and he took Tatar swords and sacked them."

Baty sent his best bogatyr Hostovrul to deal with Yevlampiy. Kolovrat tore it in half to the saddle. The Mongol-Tatars were able to defeat Kolovrat’s squad only with stencils, and Batyi gave the body of the Governor Batu to the remnants of the squad for honorable funerals - a unique case for ancient Russian history.

2) Skopin Shuisky

Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky was an invincible commander of the Time of Troubles. He suppressed the Bolotnikov uprising, led negotiations with the Swedes, began to reform the Russian army, but was poisoned by the daughter of Malyuta Skuratov because of the political intrigues of Dmitry Shuisky.

According to the descriptions of contemporaries, Mikhail Vasilyevich was distinguished by his heroic addition. The Skopin-Shuisky broadsword is kept in the historical museum. Heavy weapon for a very strong person.

3) Peter the Great

Peter the Great can be called the strongest Russian tsar. His height was 204 centimeters, and physical strength struck the vyshvashih types of contemporaries.
Peter twisted the coins with his fingers, rolled up cast-iron pans “into the ram's horn”, and checked the suitability of the horseshoe for his horse Lisetta personally, breaking one after another. About the power of Peter the Great is not one folk tale.

4) Alexander III

Russian Emperor Alexander III possessed outstanding physical strength. From his youth he didn’t like social entertainment, preferring riding lessons and physical education classes to balls and routs. The brothers said about him: "Sasha is our Hercules."
The emperor had to apply his strength to a non-ordinary situation. On October 17, 1888, during his return from the Crimea, the famous imperial train crash occurred. The roof of the carriage, in which the family of Alexander III was, began to fall.

The emperor took the falling roof onto his shoulders and held it untiluntil his wife and children got out alive and unharmed from under the rubble. After the rescue of the family, Alexander III did not hesitate and rushed to help other victims.

Wrestlers and strongmen

5) Grigory Rusakov

Grigory Rusakov Kuryanin became a world-famous wrestler after his debut in the Donbas, where he worked at the mine. After the conquest of Russia, Rusakov won the world championships in Argentina (1913) and Paris (1915).
Like other eminent wrestlers, he was personally freed by Nicholas II from military service.

But not everything went smoothly in the life of Rusakov. He was prosecuted three times in 1929, 1938, 1944.

Rusakov was also known for repeatedly engaging in demonstration battles with bears, bending horseshoes and rails, and once in London he won a bull in a battle.

6) Ivan Poddubny

Who is Ivan Poddubny everyone knows. This is the most famous Russian strongman, weight lifter, wrestler. It is interesting that Poddubny lost his first fight. This motivated him very much: he set himself a hard training regime, practiced with two-pound weights, a 112-pound barbell, refused tobacco and alcohol, doused with cold water. Until the end of his life he carried a cast-iron cane with him.More he did not lose.

Subdued Poddubny and America. There he collected full halls, competing by the rules of the American struggle. He actually escaped from the United States, terminating the predatory contract and leaving the fees due to the Americans.

Towards the end of his life, Poddubny admitted that the only force that could have overcome him was women: “All my life, you fool, they knocked me out of the way.”

7) Ivan Zaikin

Ivan Zaikin - one of the most famous Russian strong men. World champion in wrestling, weightlifting champion, circus artist, one of the first Russian aviators.

Foreign newspapers called Zaikin "Shalyapin Russian muscles." His athletic performance caused a sensation both in Russia and abroad. In 1908, during a tour in Paris, Zaikin shocked the public by tearing any chains, bracelets and ties, and bending metal beams.

Zaikin carried a 25-pound anchor on his shoulders, lifted a long barbell on his shoulders, on which ten people were seated, and began to rotate it (“live carousel”).

8) Georg Gakkenshmidt

Georg Gakkenshmidt was called the “Russian lion” and “the strongest overseas man of the turn of the century.” He was the world champion in wrestling and the world record holder in weightlifting.

Since childhood, Georg has been involved in sports, to strengthen his legs, he practiced climbing the spiral staircase to the church spire with double-weights. The merit of the fact that Gakk became a wrestler belongs to the “father of Russian athletics”, Dr. Krajewski - he convinced George that he could become the strongest in the world.

And Kraevsky was not mistaken - Gakk conquered both Russia, and Europe, and America.

Gakk with one hand squeezed the barbell weighing 122 kg, squeezed the barbell weighing 145 kg on the wrestling bridge.

Gaak raised his hands with his arms crossed on his back from a deep squat 86 kg. With a 50-kg barbell, the athlete crouched 50 times. Today this exercise is called hack squat.

9) Peter Krylov

Peter Krylov was a strong man and the undisputed winner of competitions for the best athletic figure. As a child, he chose an idol for himself - an athlete Emil Foss, who entered the arena in a silk tights and leopard skin.

Krylov set several world records. In the “wrestling bridge” position he squeezed 134 kg with both hands, 114.6 kg with his left hand. Press in the "soldier's rack": with his left hand he lifted a two-puddle weight 86 times in a row.

Krylov was called the "king of weights". He was the founder of spectacular stunts, which were then repeated by other athletes, and today the paratroopers: bending the rail on their shoulders, driving the car through the body, raising the platform with the horse and rider.

10) Grigory Kashcheev

In this photo with prominent and far from small wrestlers, Grigory Kashcheev stands out with his height - 218 cm and with his uniform - a simple shirt.

In 1906, Grigory Kashcheev first met world-class fighters and became friends with Zaikin, who helped him to enter the big arena.

Soon, Kashcheev put all famous strongmen on the shoulder blades, and in 1908, together with Poddubny and Zaikin, conquered Paris at the World Championship.

So brilliantly begun, Kashcheyev's career did not work out - the wrestler became a downshifter, refused the most lucrative offers, left everything and went to his village to plow the land.

11) Alexander Zass

Alexandra Zass was called the Iron Samson. In the arena he wore a horse or a piano with a pianist and dancer placed on the lid; caught the 90-kilogram nucleus, which was fired from a circus cannon from a distance of 8 meters; he tore off the floor and held in his teeth a metal beam with assistants sitting at its ends.

In the famous attraction of the Personnel round, Alexander Zass caught with his hands an assistant, a circus cannon flying out of the mouth and describing a 12-meter trajectory above the arena.

In 1938, in Sheffield, in front of a crowd of people, a truck loaded with coal moved him. Samson stood up and, smiling, bowed before the audience.

Zass was one of the first to introduce isometric exercises into his training session. This allowed him to strengthen the tendons so that with his small weight he managed to set records that have not been beaten yet.

12) Ivan Shemyakin

The two-meter giant, Ivan Shemyakin, at his first lesson in an athletic school, was able to push the barbell with just 72 kilograms with both hands, but this did not embarrass him. He began to train hard.

The trainings brought results: Shemyakin won the competition in the Bicycle and Athletic Society for kettlebells and won the third prize at the Russian Championship.

In 1908, in Petersburg, Shemyakin showed a unique power number - a metal beam was bent on his shoulder.

In 1913, participating in the world championship, held in the St. Petersburg circus "Modern", Ivan Shemyakin defeated the famous Ivan Zaikin, and the powerful, evil on the carpet, Nikolai Vakhturov and won first place. Shemyakin overcame and other fighters of world renown, but his meetings with Ivan Poddubny always ended in a draw.

13) Ivan Lebedev

In 1916, Ivan Lebedev (the strong men called him “Uncle Vanya”) published the book “A Guide to How to Develop Your Strength by Exercising Weights.” Lebedev not only developed athletics and wrestling in Russia, but he himself was a notable strongman. He was engaged in the same luminary of the “Russian force” Vladislav Krayevsky.

Lebedev published the magazine Hercules and was the first promoter in Russia. His notes are interesting today.

Regarding the mode of life, he wrote: "The human body does not tolerate constraints, but every excess is harmful. As for food, I strongly advise against eating meat: it introduces products of putrefactive decomposition into your body and forms uric acid, which poison the body. The basic rule for eating: chew as slowly as possible. Drinking alcohol and smoking - I do not advise. Sleep - 7-8 hours. Dress, not wrapping and not wearing warm clothes. Fresh air and water (showering or washing) are necessary for every person who wants to be strong and healthy.».

14) Vasily Alekseev

Vasily Alekseev - the last hero of the Soviet era. "Russian Bear" (as foreign fans nicknamed him) twice became the champion of the Olympic Games, six times - the World Champion, six times - the European Champion, for seven years he held first place in the USSR Championships.

During his sports career, Vasily Alekseev set 80 world records and 81 USSR records. He is also the “eternal” owner of the current world record for the sum of three exercises - 645 kg (now there are no competitions in this discipline).

Vasily Alekseev competed with himself, setting new records at championships from time to time. It was he who opened the era of “six hundred”, the first having conquered the six hundred kilogram peak. From 1989 to 1992, Alekseev coached the national team and the United Weightlifting Team. During his coaching work, no member of the national team was injured. One of his loyal fans is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

15) Yuri Vlasov

Another brilliant Soviet weightlifter - "Iron Man" Yuri Vlasov. Olympic champion (1960), silver medalist of the Games (1964), 4-time world champion (1959, 1961-1963), 6-time European champion (1959-1964; in non-Olympic years, championships were held as part of the World Championships), 5-time champion of the USSR (1959-1963). Yury Vlasov set 31 world records and 41 USSR records (1957–1967).
Yury Vlasov was the standard-bearer of the USSR delegation at the opening of the 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games.

16) Ivan Denisov

Let us turn to modern strongmen. The traditions of kettlebell lifting in Russia are strong today.One of the strongest weightlifters in the world is the representative of the Chelyabinsk kettlebell school Ivan Denisov - the master of sports of international class. Ivan Denisov is a multiple champion of Russia, Europe and the World, a multiple record holder of Russia, Europe and the World.

In 2005, at the World Championships in Moscow, Denisov set absolute world records in the push of 175 lifts and a double-event total of 281 points. Earlier records belonged to Sergey Mishin and were unchanged for more than ten years.

17) Alexander Karelin

“San Sanych” Karelin at birth weighed 6.5 kilograms, at 13 he had a height of 178 cm and a weight of 78 kilograms. Already 4 years after joining the section, Karelin became the world champion among youth.

During his sports career, the wrestler collected various titles, won in 887 bouts, lost only two times. He took Olympic gold three times, became a world champion 9 times, 12 times a European champion, and took gold 13 times at the USSR, CIS and Russian championships. Four times Alexander Karelin was awarded the "Golden Belt" as the best fighter of the planet.

February 20, 1999 Karelin fought a Japanese fighter Akira Maeda. “Russian Bear” used only the arsenal of the native Greco-Roman wrestling in the ring.Maede at the beginning of the fight managed to make several kicks, but in less than a minute he turned into a training dummy for practicing the throws.

18) Fedor Emelianenko

Fyodor Emelianenko, the “last emperor,” remained undefeated for almost ten years, which is unprecedented in the history of MMA.

Emelianenko is a four-time MMA heavyweight world champion according to Pride FC, a two-time one according to RINGS, a two-time WAMMA version, a four-time world champion and seven-time Russian champion in combat sambo. Honored master of sports in sambo and master of sports of international class in judo.

This summer, the "last emperor" returned to the sport. December 31 will be rooting for him in a tournament in Japan.

Writers

19) Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was a powerful old man. In his house there were rings and a trapeze, in the yard there was a horizontal bar. The writer studied with weights until old age. Once he remarked: “After all, I, you know, raised five pounds with one hand.”

It is difficult to doubt this. At the age of seventy, the “Yasnaya Polyana old man” overtook the boys in the race, he swam perfectly, rode well. A year before his death, in 1909, when Tolstoy was 82 years old, in a playful argument he defeated all the guests in a “fight on his hands”.

Tolstoy, who became one of the first fighters for sobriety and a healthy lifestyle, said: “For me, the daily movement of bodily work is necessary, like air. With diligent mental work without movement and bodily labor, there is grief ”.

20) Vladimir Gilyarovsky

Another Russian strongman from literature is Vladimir Gilyarovsky.

At sixteen, he ran away from home. Having traveled two hundred kilometers on foot from Vologda to Yaroslavl, he hired in the Burlatzian artel. At first, the barge haulers doubted whether to take the boy, but Gilyi had tremendous physical strength, pulled a penny out of his pocket and easily rolled it into a tube.

Mikhail Chekhov recalled the first visit of “Uncle Gilya” to Chekhov’s house: “He immediately became with us on“ you ”, suggested we touch his iron muscles on his hands, rolled a penny into a straw, rolled a teaspoon with a screw”.